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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The1exile" data-source="post: 6693361" data-attributes="member: 6798820">We picked up after a pretty long break yesterday (one of the players was away and the rest of us were trying out 5th edition) and kicked off after recapping with the Nettles church ambush. I was very proud of my roll20 creation to handle the layers of hiding things from the players - <a href="http://i.imgur.com/LbuN9jk.jpg" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/LbuN9jk.jpg</a> - but messed up a little by not immediately plunging the characters into darkness, which I could have gotten away with with a good surprise round, but all but Arla made their perception check, including the entirely uninjured von Recklinghausen. The fight was therefore somewhat uneventful, although they got a look at some of the shadow man's cooler powers and Asimov was repeatedly deafened, and the party successfully escaped the scene with Leone Quital (whose name I may have forgotten to mention in the monologuing since I was focussing on the accent...) in the Andy Dufresne manner.With the documents secured, the party made their way back to Central to report. They met Delft, who took the opportunity to congratulate them on the daring capture of Li Grifoni Grifande (which of course has developed a life of its own, especially when the party said "we used druid magic and deceit!") and reminded them of the similarities to Aodhan's raid in the 3rd Yerasol War. When he heard about the Doctor, he got the debrief and was introduced to the doctor (who is in protective custody) ahead of going with the party to meet Saxby. I've been really pleased with how the debrief sessions have given the party ideas about the personalities of their bosses and this was a really good way to establish what everyone knows and tie the political themes together with the emergent conspiracy ahead of the reveals in the denouement.Delft invited the whole party for drinks with the RHC to celebrate their capture of the ship but first the group tied up some other links - being invited to meet with Cippiano (who I fear won't have as much of an impact on the plot progression as I'd like), checking out the documents in detail, calling in some financial tracking with a favour (which will yield results later...) and most importantly, going to meet LeBrix for a professional chat with Asimov and Silas.LeBrix tells them what he knows, which isn't much that the party didn't already have, but when the party share their leads he is able to tell them about the threats on his and his family's life made by the arsonists and gives Silas the vendetta bullets. From there the party heads to the police bar for some drinks and story sharing, and most stagger home in the late evening but Silas returns to HQ and strikes up a conversation with von Recklinghausen on the subject of surgery and magical healing (because he is on a quest to restore his face from some of the scars he picked up in the wars) but also as a fellow alchemist they trade some recipes.The party meets before dawn - almost not doing so and as such resigning Sechim's factory to being burned down - but they arrive in time and Asimov strikes up a conversation with Eberado. (Incidentally, I missed that he apparently doesn't speak Primordial!) Armed with their vision and LeBrix's info though they weren't falling for it, and within the first round, before he even had a chance to act, Eberardo took a vendetta bullet straight through his skull courtesy of Silas's corrosive pistol and a x4 crit modifier. Since the other arsonists hadn't acted, and the tactics called for the arsonists to be lead in by the hulking barbarian, I basically had the entire group rout. The Flaming Sphere I allowed to be counteracted by Arla's aggressive thundercloud, while Asimov used his robot to drag the wagon into the river. The fleeing arsonists will be rounded up by Sechim's curiously absent guards. Less was unhappy about Silas' straight up murder, but he wasn't having it, arguing that they were a) obvious enemies of Risur and b) threatened another man's family.At this point two urchins approach, who Less knows from her background with orphans. One of them tells them about the creepy warehouse, while the other delivers the note to Silas, appealing to his patriotism. When she finds out that "the shadow man" gave the urchin the note, Less (mildly hung over and already in a bad mood over the killing of an arsonist) is very annoyed by this and the party head straight of to the warehouse, to see what's going on. With Detect Planar Energy, they are able to find the place quickly and use their climbing to get up to the window, which gives them a better view of what is happening within. They jimmy the window open and sneak onto the catwalks, avoiding the Alarm spell and being able to get a good assessment of what is going on and of the golem with a good knowledge (engineering) check and some knowledge (arcana). They move in position to take out the technicians and the battle begins.Generally I thought the party had a good tactical setup here. They were able to rain ranged attacks down on the technicians - Silas with a rifle, Asimov with a crossbow, and Arla with either her storm burst or a sling and bullets. But Less had no ranged options, and descended via the cages to fight the technicians (and ultimately the golem) in hand to hand combat.The technicians are dropping fast, but the golem activates and moves up to slam into Less. She tries to employ a flurrying retreat onto the cages, but takes another hit, dropping her to 6 hp at this point. Asimov is moving around, ready to use their wand of cure wounds to try and fix up Less, who has opted at this point to take a total defence action.At this point, the golem crits. And rolls a nat 19 on the confirm.4d6 + 8 damage turns out to knock Less straight into the "below constitution score" part of negative hp and she instantly dies.Silas' corroding bullets are doing work on the golem, with its terrible touch AC and the fact that the DR 5/adamantine does not apply to the acid damage, but Arla is essentially useless with her d4 sling bullets and Asimov's d hand crossbow is doing barely anything.One of the players ran into internet problems at this point, so we had to pack it up mid fight, but the golem is at stage 2 and has attempted to knock down a part of the catwalk so far with a charging leap.</blockquote>

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